Aging

“Christmas gift!”

That old Southern custom of grabbing the advantage on Christmas morning by being the first to say “Christmas gift!” still rules in our family.

But even if that sounds like strange business to you, gift giving — presents — is what kids of all ages usually find at the top of our minds this time of year. The season is all about giving, isn’t it? (And getting!) As I have grown into old age, though, after decades of ruminating on it, the meanings embedded in “Christmas gift” have also grown and changed for me.

This year, especially as our son’s partner has just given birth to our first grandchild and created for us an up-close and personal nativity scene, meanings far deeper than frenzied shopping malls are vivid and dance inside us.

May I share the most vivid meaning with you?

Childbirth, the nativity scene, is the most powerful example we have of letting go.

Physically, not just metaphorically. All gift-giving entails letting go. That’s what giving is. But as mothers and midwives and doulas have said eloquently, when the mother’s body powerfully takes over and the birth process begins, then it’s a matter of letting go control, relinquishing any thought of control, and letting Mother Nature, who knows exactly what to do, take over. Giving birth may be the supreme act of letting go.

Christmas Day of all days is emblematic to many of us of the holiness of childbirth. The ancient story read today in churches is about just that, with its resonant undertones of letting go. Those undertones become dominant later in the story when an old man, Simeon, is so moved by seeing the baby that he exclaims, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace …”

The other supreme act of letting go is willing consent to completing one’s lifetime in death.

From start to end, the Christmas story is about letting go.

In between those two human landmarks, birth and death, the theme of “letting go” is a life lesson we mature into. Children are all about getting presents, then acquiring education, later getting a job, spouse and family, possessing a car and house and all the rest.

In the first half of life, we acquire and construct. In the second half, we begin to realize the equally important value of letting go things that are external to our true self.

We realize that rather than diminishing us in any way, to let go increases our delight.

We become aware that every spiritual tradition, those that celebrate Christmas and those that celebrate other Holy Days, every spiritual path emphasizes the positive value of letting go.

In place of holding on, generous giving. In place of acquisitiveness, detachment. In place of willful defiance, spiritual surrender. In place of amassing wealth and hoarding, simplifying. In place of earning merit, grace.

The wonderful secret of letting go is close to the top in spiritual traditions everywhere. And the secret is most readily available to elders. In fact, it may be the heart of becoming an elder, not just becoming an old-timer or “senior,” but an elder.

Franciscan teacher Richard Rohr was thinking of letting go when he named his book on elderhood “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.”

Franciscans say “falling” because St. Francis spent his life just falling: into the good, the true, the beautiful.

St. Francis displays the beauty of a person who has let go the passion to “have what we love” and experienced the tectonic shift of one who is content to “love what we have.” The way we come to that contentment is by letting go.

One teacher that moves us along the way is the Christmas story. It gently teaches us when we openheartedly attend to the humility and surrender of the birth-giving mother and the humble outpouring of the child. (Paul used the Greek word “kenosis” to describe him, which means “self-emptying” or “letting go.”)

An early Christmas gift I gave myself this year is the book “An Interrupted Life,” the diaries of Etty Hillesum from 1941 to 1943, the year this young Dutch Jewish lawyer died in a concentration camp.

The diaries tremble with courage and hopefulness and self-giving. One quotation puts a wrapping on the Christmas gift I receive in reading her: “Every day I shall put my papers in order and every day I shall say farewell. And the real farewell, when it comes, will only be a small outward confirmation of what has been accomplished within me from day to day.”

Etta proves it: Being an elder is not a matter of age (she was 30), but attitude. Her great gift, her positive value, was knowing how to let go. And her life’s accomplishment was marked, in the words of Peter Marshall, not by its duration but by its donation.

Be blessed this sacred season by finding new depths of soul, where you find you are not alone, but are in the presence of everlasting light and an everlasting love.

Bert Keller and Bill Simpson write the occasional column, “Aging for Amateurs.” Keller, a retired minister and bioethicist, wrote this installment. Comments, questions and suggestions are welcome at agingforamateurs@gmail.com.

Recently, I’ve been running across a lot of online writing about growing old with grace. Most of them are saccharine and say the same few things:

Stay active
Be social
Serve others
Laugh

Some throw in the phrase “stay in love.” That’s how you can tell it is mostly young people who write this stuff. They aren’t old enough to have lost a spouse of many decades yet. As to the first four – well, duh. But they speak more to health than grace.

Yes, that overused, well-worn idea that no two people define the same way. What I have come to after nearly 20 years of reading, studying and thinking about age is that a graceful old age cannot happen (whatever the definition) without accepting our age and saying farewell to our youth.

There is the perennial question about when is someone old. Many people – some who have commented on the subject at this blog – think 50 or 55 is still young.

Really? Anyone who hangs on to that belief hasn’t had to look for a job at that age. Workplace age discrimination starts at 40 – even 35 in the case of women – and it becomes painfully obvious in job interviews that even people your own age think you’re old.

In western culture, 50 to 55 is the beginning of old age. But that’s a good thing. Geriatricians and researchers who study aging tell us that on average these days, the diseases of old age don’t start to kick in until about age 75.

So if we do not deny that aging is inevitable and do not obsessively try to prolong youth, we have 20 or 25 years before we hit old-old age to discover, move toward and live in a stage of life that is as different and distinct as childhood is from adolescence and adulthood.

Oh, the books and movies and TV shows and 50-plus websites and anti-aging “experts” will incessantly proclaim that we must and can maintain the appearance and behavior of people 20 and 30 years younger by whatever means they are touting – chemical, surgical, pharmaceutical.

They foist examples upon us of “supergrans” and “supergrandads” who climb mountains at age 80 and skydive at 90, strongly implying that we who don’t are failing to keep up.

The best thing we can do is ignore them and rejoice in our aliveness for they believe only exteriors matter. If we don’t listen to them, we can continue to love ourselves however different our bodies become.

Be honest, now: does having a saggy, old body prevent you from being happy, prevent you from knowing pleasure, however you derive it? Of course, it doesn’t.

What makes any- and everyone beautiful in old age is acceptance of their years, of themselves as they are.

After about 60, it is a victory of sorts just to awaken in the morning. We can face each new day with sadness for our lost youth or with joy for our luck at reaching this time of life. It’s a personal choice.

We eagerly said farewell to childhood when adolescence beckoned and goodbye to that stage of life when adulthood was upon us. It is a mistake – one of monumental proportions, I believe – to cling to adulthood when age arrives.

Instead, when we accept the losses age imposes on us – youth, physical power, our position in society – say yes to old age, open ourselves to its mysteries and live every day in the present tense with passion and an open heart, we can’t help but experience this time as an opportunity for happiness, fulfillment, joy and in time, serenity.

In moving on from adulthood, we allow ourselves to grow into new dimensions of life and we get a chance at completion.

That is, at our own pace over the remaining years, we can review our pasts, learn to forgive our failures and trespasses, face our regrets – those coulda, shoulda, wouldas – find some peace and, maybe, wisdom.

I don’t want to waste those wonderful opportunities by pretending I’m not old enough for them.

In no way do I mean to dismiss the debilities and diseases that can shadow old age and make everyday life difficult. But I do mean to say that we can explore distant horizons even as our physical worlds may shrink. All we need to do is ignore the charlatans of anti-aging and most of all:

Adapt as circumstances require
Accept our limits with humor
Find new pleasures to replace the ones we must surrender

In these acts, I believe, we find grace in old age.

By: Marilyn Schlitz

As I live into my own process of aging, my worldview has been informed by the depth and insight of many great teachers. These include masters from different wisdom traditions, health care practitioners, friends facing end of life, and researchers studying the transformative nature of death, dying, and beyond. For decades, the team at the Institute of Noetic Sciences has conducted research, created educational programs, and engaged in conversations on transformations in consciousness. We have been led to an ever-expanding appreciation for the aging process and its transformative potentials. We also have found ourselves moved by a great calling to help reduce the suffering that so many experience. During this process, we have identified nine practices that can help people engage the fullness of their lives, each and every moment.

1. Reflect on Your Assumptions. Stop long enough to reflect on your worldview, beliefs, stereotypes, and assumptions. How might they be limiting you or holding you back? What do you need to change to reflect your highest values and most noble aspirations?

2. Reframe Your Inner Talk. Take note of your critical self-talk, bringing the inner critic into more conscious awareness to help reframe these internal messages as more positive and self-compassionate. As you invite equanimity and self-compassion, wonder and awe into your daily life, even the most mundane aspects of experience can become sacred.

3. Shift Your Perspective. Clear a space in your life that turns away from the popular media and the weapons of “mass distraction” that shape the dominant culture’s view of aging. Find opportunities to pause and ask yourself where you find joy, goodness, and connections. Write down major moments of transformation that have led you to who you are and what gives you meaning. As philosopher Soren Kierkegaard noted, “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”

4. Practice Mindful Attention. Bring your attention toward greater self-awareness through simple activities such as meditation, contemplative prayer, journal writing, walks in nature, gardening with mindfulness, and somatic subtle-energy body practices. What do you need to surrender or leave behind? How can you conserve your energy for what has heart and meaning? What still needs healing or forgiveness?

5. Set Intentions. Ask yourself, “What matters most? What values do I want to adhere to?” Based on these reflections, you can craft an intentionality statement so that when challenges and opportunities arise, you will have developed an inner compass with which to navigate and make more conscious life choices.

6. Build New Habits. Challenge your brain with new learnings, explore new activities, dance often, connect with people of different generations, ask a child about his life, or do something new every day. Neuroscience offers us hope that such new habits are possible as we lay down new neural pathways that can help us see the world and ourselves in new ways. As Gandhi said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

7. Find Guidance. Find a skilled teacher, a study group, and/or a social network that supports your explorations. Whether in virtual or proximal social settings, connecting with others offers a way of living into new patterns and behaviors.

8. Move from I to We. While aging is a personal process, conscious aging is more than a personal quest. It can infuse your life as you promote the transformation of your community. Altruism and compassion born of shared destiny, rather than duty or obligation, can emerge and add joy and purpose to your actions.

9. Death Makes Life Possible. An important part of positive trans-formation involves a reflection on one’s own cosmology of what happens after we die. There are many maps or worldviews on this question, revealing a wide range of viewpoints. In considering them, people can find comfort and a set of possibilities for their understanding. As people grow older, as they come to face their own mortality, they can bring greater awareness to the transformative process that allows a deeper experience of their life journey.

– See more at: http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/nine-practices-conscious-aging#sthash.JzzrW9wU.dpuf

Is This My Body?

© 2011 Brenda Dineen | Reprinting permission with credit to author

I first injured my knee in 2003. I was jogging on a treadmill and noticed pain in my knee. The pain didn’t go away that night, but I went back to the gym the next day. “What me? I don’t get injuries”, was my inner thinking. So of course, the pain increased.  I decided not to go to the gym for a while, but I didn’t seek medical help.  This is called Denial.  I refused to recognize what was going on.  I was lying on the couch complaining about my knee and my daughter suggested I go to a doctor or physiotherapist.  Which I did, two months later!  My inner voice was asking: Is this my body? Is this actually happening?

Later, in 2009 I was going to hot yoga classes, and I tore the cartilage in the same knee in a deep knee posture. Snap!  I felt it tear. That was the end of the hot yoga classes.  It took over a year to get the right specialist, an MRI and finally knee surgery in 2010.  Surgery did not fit my self-image!  I had to surrender and see that I had overtaxed my knees for a very long time.

I think many of us have similar experiences with our bodies and our health. We are operating from the past e.g. I used to easily run around the Sea Wall in Vancouver. And participate in the 10 km Sun Run.  Those days are gone for me. I cannot run now. I have had to let go of running. I now accept this and see what exercises I can do.  I have a bicycle and often bike along the river near where I live. I can use the elliptical trainer, the  bicycle and the rowing machine at the gym.  As some activities are no longer possible, we need to look at what works for us now.

It is frequently a challenge to accept the changes taking place in our bodies. Especially in our 50’s, 60’s and older, we all have some issues with our health.  Our skin is becoming dry and wrinkled, our hair thinning, our bones more brittle, our cardiovascular rate is changing and our senses are not as acute. Weight gain is common. We also experience the loss of beauty and can feel invisible as we are passed by.  We walk by a store window and see our reflection: Is this me? Is this my body?

One of the best things you can do for yourself at this time in life is come to ACCEPTANCE. That means, accepting what is happening: accepting the changes in your looks and your health. It’s when we resist change that we come into difficulty. Instead of saying “No, No, not me!” can you say: “I am willing to love and accept myself exactly as I am.”

We often hear advice about getting older:  Stay active!   This seems obvious, but I am finding it to be so true. I have always found exercise that I like and I notice at this time in my life that regular exercise is of great benefit. I feel wonderful riding my bike along the river. I enjoy Hatha yoga and stretching. I drink more water.  I respect my body more. When I was younger, I took it for granted. Now I treasure it more.

Contemplations:

1. How has your body been a friend to you throughout your life?
2. How has your body felt less than a friend? Has it betrayed you?
3. How do you talk to your body? Do you appreciate it?

Thank your body for all the ways it serves you every day. Marvel at all its functions and its beauty. Take a moment to remember that all the systems of your body continue to function 24/7, without you consciously thinking about them. Finally, take three deep breaths and give thanks for being able to breathe.

Author: Brenda Dineen, Registered Clinical Counsellor, Brenda is a therapist in Vancouver, British Columbia specializing in second half of life issues.